Good Stuff
by mischieflover
Summary: Bucky suffers from intense nightmares that sometimes leave a physical mark. Sometimes he needs to be reminded to see the good stuff, too. T rating for teeny bit of language just to be safe. Bucky/OC oneshot.


I examined the four purpling dots along my hip, each about the size of a nickel. If I twisted to look in the bathroom mirror, I could just make out the fifth, a dark smudge about three inches to the right of my spine.

He'd had one of the attacks again. Calling them nightmares just didn't seem to do them justice. This one had come on silently. As soon as I woke up to his fingers biting into my skin, I had known better than to try to wake him up. When he was in the suffocating grip of an attack, no amount of outside force could bring him out of it; not even Steve could wake him, when they'd been living in Avengers HQ right after coming home. The best I could do was bite my lip and try to slip away the moment his grip loosened the slightest bit. I didn't always come out the other side of the attacks with bruises. In fact, most of them seemed to paralyze him; he'd go still as death, as if his body defaulted to a mock state of cryo-sleep, until his tortured mind saw fit to release him from whatever hell it trapped him in at night.

I heard the bedsheets rustle and then soft footsteps cross the bedroom toward the bathroom. I pulled my shirt back down over the fresh bruises and busied myself with my cup of water just as Bucky stepped into the bathroom.

"Have you come to join my club?" I asked, smiling at him in the mirror. "It's great fun. I'm thinking of calling it 'Insomniacs in the Bathroom Club'." I frowned and turned to face him, suppressing a wince as the counter pressed into the bruise on my back. "Maybe three in the morning isn't the best time for me to come up with club names. My creativity's shot."

He regarded me silently for a moment. Slowly, he stepped forward and took the cup from my hand, setting it down on the counter. His blue eyes, alert yet wary, swept over me and I knew he'd picked up on something I didn't want him to see. "What did I do?" he said quietly, his voice still slightly raspy from sleep.

Damn those gorgeous yet annoyingly observant super-soldier eyes. Still, I just shook my head. "Nothing. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, so I figured I'd get some water before trying again." I nodded toward the cup. "I didn't mean to wake you up. I promise I'll come back to bed soon."

Bucky was never an easy person to fool, and tonight was no exception. He sighed and rubbed an eye with the heel of his right hand - the only hand he had at the moment. After the first non-paralyzing attack, he refused to sleep with the cybernetic prosthetic arm if I was around. The genius princess of Wakanda herself came and upgraded his arm to have the option of detaching it just above the elbow. It hadn't exactly eased Bucky's guilt over the incident, but it did help to finally convince him to come back, for which I was eternally grateful to Shuri.

Raising an eyebrow, Bucky reached out and tugged at the hem of my shirt. I let him pull me closer. I steeled myself as he lifted my shirt up, warm fingers brushing the bottom of my rib cage. As soon as he saw the bruises, Bucky dropped the fabric and stepped back, turning away from me.

"Bucky, it's fine, please don't-"

"Damn it, Abigail, it's not fine!" Bucky gripped the edge of the countertop, his back still to me.

Silence descended in the small bathroom. I could hear the faint whirring of the machinery in his upper cyber-arm reacting as the muscles across his back and shoulders tensed. I watched the pain, guilt, regret, and a hundred other things that I knew I'd never be able to truly understand begin to overwhelm him yet again. Cautiously, I moved forward, my fingers ghosting over the skin of his bare back. He didn't move. I pressed my hands flat against the taut muscles of his lower back and rested my forehead between his shoulder blades. This time he took a deep, shaky breath.

"I know what you're going to say," I murmured. "I'm going to get hurt, I'm making a mistake, it's too dangerous..."

"Because you _are_ making a mistake, it _is_ too dangerous, and you _are_ going to get hurt," Bucky said hoarsely. "But you don't listen."

I sighed. "You think this is just your decision. But you don't get to decide what's best for me or how I should live my life."

"I'm not deciding how you-"

"You don't mean to," I interrupted. "You don't mean to, and I know you don't, but every time we have this argument it comes down to what _you_ think is best... Like what I want or need doesn't count." Bucky hunched his shoulders, almost cringing away from me. I lifted my head and stepped back. "I want you, Bucky." I took a slow, deep breath and watched him do the same. I let my gaze fall to the tiled floor, knotting my fingers in the hem of my shirt. "But... You get to decide what you need. And if it's not the same kind of things that I need, then that's a different story. But trying to push me away because you think that's what I need isn't going to fly." I fell silent and watched Bucky for a few moments. When he remained still and quiet, I turned to leave. I'd almost made it to the door when Bucky's hand closed around my wrist, gently stopping me.

"I need you."

I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded, and Bucky drew me in close, tucking my head under his chin. I wrapped my arms around his waist as his hand slowly rubbed up and down my back.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

I shook my head. "You never need to apologize to me. Unless you do something shitty that's within your control. Then I'll want chocolate." I heard him snort softly. "But this isn't one of those times. And it's getting a lot better. It is," I insisted when I felt him shake his head. "Ever since you started doing your sessions with Shuri and her doctors every month, this kind of stuff is happening less and less. You, Mister Glass-Half-Empty, always focus on the bad days and forget to see that you've gone four days this week without a problem." I leaned back and smiled proudly at him. "Shit happens - unfairly more to you than most. But it doesn't mean good stuff doesn't happen, also. Remember to see that too, okay?"

After a beat, the corners of Bucky's mouth lifted in a small smile. "Okay." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "But next time, please don't try to hide it when something happens."

"Deal." I unhooked my arms from around him and took his hand instead, pulling him back to the bedroom. "But, let's be honest, I've done worse to myself running into the furniture." I pointed with my free hand to the evidence: a green and yellow bruise the size of my fist on the side of my thigh.

Bucky frowned and I worried that maybe I had jumped into teasing about bruises a little too soon, but then he rolled his eyes. "I guess I should be grateful you don't call me a 'dirty rat bastard' like you did that poor end table."

Relief flowed through me. "It had it coming, jumping out at me like that. I mean, who put that there anyway?"

"You did, sweetheart."

I pulled the covers back and climbed into the bed, snuggling into Bucky's warmth as he slid in next to me. "Yeah, well, whatever," I mumbled.

Bucky chuckled softly, pulling me close against his side. I began to drift off to the comforting rhythm of Bucky's heartbeat. I barely felt the brush of his lips agains the top of my head as he whispered, "You are my good stuff."


End file.
